In the long, often spectacular history of Hampton Roads, few sights can match the epic scene that unfolded in the waters off Old Point Comfort in early December 1907.

Trailing long vees of white water and giant plumes of black smoke, battleship after battleship passed through the Virginia Capes and into the harbor, where they anchored in two 4-mile-long crescent lines a stone's throw from the Hotel Chamberlin and its busy steamship wharf .

Some 10 days elapsed as 16 of the immense white warships steamed in from Boston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and other Atlantic coast navy yards, forming what the Daily Press described as "the greatest naval movement in the history of the American people."

And by the time Rear Adm. Robley D. "Fighting Bob" Evans hoisted his flag above the USS Connecticut — assuming command of what soon become famous as the Great White Fleet — many observers were comparing this momentous display of American naval power to the historic battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack in the same harbor 45 years earlier.

No wonder President Theodore Roosevelt and a crowd of thousands were so excited when the presidential yacht Mayflower arrived on Dec. 16 to be greeted by 16 thunderous 21-gun salutes, nearly half from battleships built in Newport News.

"Did you ever see such a fleet? And such a day?" Roosevelt said.

"Isn't it magnificent? Ought not we all (to) feel proud?"

Even as reporters scratched down his words, the Commander-in-Chief who had sold Congress on a grand voyage to the West Coast knew the answer.

Over the following 14 months, his ships would circle the earth, not only blunting the imperial ambitions of Japan — which had just beaten the Russia navy in a one-sided war — but also demonstrating to the rest of the world America's arrival as a global industrial and naval power.

"There had never been anything like it — a fleet this size — a voyage this long — and going around the world with that many ships was unprecedented," Hampton Roads Naval Museum curator Joe Judge says.

"The Great White Fleet was clearly designed to show off American naval power in a way it had never been seen before."

Global ambition

Decorated with gilded scrollwork and painted red, white and blue banners on their bows, Roosevelt's battleships traveled more than 43,000 nautical miles, visiting 20 ports on six different continents, including a critical call on Japan.

Such good-will voyages had become common among the world's naval powers in the early 1900s, and Roosevelt had previously embraced opportunities to send American ships to France, Germany and Great Britain.

So in some ways the Great White Fleet was merely a bigger and more widely traveled version of those cruises.

"It generated a tremendous stream of souvenirs and good will material from around the world — including postcards, brochures, booklets and newspaper stories," says Judge, whose museum has mounted two displays of artifacts from the voyage.

"There's no doubt that it made quite an impression wherever it went — and that's exactly what Roosevelt wanted."

Still, this global demonstration of good will also was meant to showcase America's industrial and naval might, especially after the emergence of Japan as a major sea power.

And after winning a Nobel Peace Prize for brokering an end to the Russo-Japanese War, Roosevelt knew that job would require overcoming many of the same problems that had dogged the Russian navy in its failed attempt to fight half a world away from its primary supply bases.

"The U.S. Navy of the day was powered by coal — and insuring a supply in the distant Pacific was always a problem," Judge says.

"They also had to consider the effect of such an extended deployment on the crews. That's a long time to be living and working on ships where the conditions were quite primitive."

Among the Great White Fleet's critics were some who argued that the Navy could conduct the same trials in its home waters at far less expense.

But Roosevelt — a former Secretary of the Navy — argued that the fleet would face more telling tests of its sea- and battle-worthiness far from home on a round-the-world voyage.

Reinforcing his logic was the nation's crucial need to defend its new overseas possessions in Guam, the Philippines and Puerto Rico, which had been won only 9 years before in the Spanish-American War.

And that meant transforming what had previously been a coastal defense force into a genuine blue-water navy.

""I want all failures, blunders and shortcomings to be made apparent in time of peace and not in time of war," Roosevelt said.

A gleaming fleet

Despite the daunting nature of the challenge, the president had many reasons to be confident as his gleaming battleships sailed from Hampton Roads.

Though commanded by Rear Adm. Evans — the last active duty naval officer who had served in the Civil War — the complement of junior officers aboard the fleet included such standout figures as Midshipman Raymond A. Spruance, who served aboard the USS Minnesota, and Ensign William F. Halsey, who served on the USS Kansas.

Both would later become famous as fighting admirals in the Pacific during World War Il.

The Great White Fleet also boasted some of the world's newest and most modern warships, with every vessel — including seven constructed at the rapidly growing yard at Newport News — completed since the Spanish-American War ended.

"They were the best ships in the American navy," says naval architect and historian William A. Fox, author of "Always Good Ships: Histories of Newport News Ships."

"Some of them were only a year old."

Many shipyard workers took the day off to watch the fleet depart, and they'd turn out again when the expedition returned two years later.

That's because everyone from superintendent Homer L. Ferguson to the lowliest apprentice knew their labors were attracting international attention.

"Newport News Shipbuilding had only been around for a few years — and in a very short time it went from building tiny tugboats to battleships," Fox says.

"So it was a leader early on in its history."

Lessons learned

Still, even as the fleet assembled in Hampton Roads, the world's navies and their battleships were changing quickly.

Just the year before, Great Britain had commissioned the landmark HMS Dreadnought, introducing so many revolutionary changes in battleship design that every ship completed before it — including the vessels of the Great White Fleet — was soon considered obsolete.

Despite incorporating many of the lessons learned from the Spanish-American War, moreover, the American warships proved over and over again during their 43,000-nautical-mile trial that many more changes were needed to produce a navy that could compete on a world stage.

"They didn't have the freeboard they needed. They had this negative sweep to the bows. And that made them wet in all but the calmest weather," Fox says.

"So when you look at the next generation of battleships, there's this tremendous difference in design. They're significantly taller, wider and heavier — and they're longer by as much as 100 feet."

Many of those new battleships would be built at Newport News, which became a leading arsenal of the nation's new blue-water naval ambitions.

But no one would forget the roots of that global reach in the Great White Fleet.

For many years, the first thing visitors encountered when they stepped through the door at Atlantic fleet command in Norfolk was a giant, wall-sized photograph of Roosevelt's mighty battleships steaming past Old Point Comfort on their way to the far-off Pacific.

"It's an iconic image for the Navy," Judge says.

"Not just for this milestone voyage but for the history of the navy as a whole."

Erickson can be reached at 757-247-4783. Find more Hampton Roads history stories at dailypress.com/history.